It's a Mini Adventure

Didn't do a whole lot today, but everything I do seems to become a mini adventure. My mate Ali said that before I left, that when travelling even daily stuff becomes fun cos it's unknown and he was RIGHT. So today I left to wander over to the nearest town with a train station, Kaibara. I heard it's a pretty long way, but I thought a walk would be fun and I'd get to know the area a bit. It was a really sunny day but there were a few grey clouds on the horizon so I though I'd take an umbrella anyway. Started to rain after about 10 mins so I put it up. 'What an adventure!' I didn't say to myself.

I stupidly left the map at home, and kept having to drop into shops to ask people the way, and of course I didn't understand their answer. Lots of nodding and smiling. I stopped at a chemist cos I needed some shower gel type stuff, and only after I left did I realise I'd just paid ABOUT FIFTEEN QUID for a BOTTLE OF SHOWER GEL :o(. I must have bought the Japanese equivalent of Clarins or something. It better be the best shower gel ever. In fact, typing this I just looked at it and it says something about collagen on it. W T F ? ? ? And it smells like perfume. Rubbish.

So anyway, about an hour into the walk (when I'm starting to wonder where the hell this place is) it reeeeaaaaalllly starts to bucket down. Like, massive drops of rain like we never get in the UK. And there are mountains on both sides of me (pretty far away but theres not a whole lot between me and them but fields) and thunder and lightning start breaking out on alternate sides. My little clear umbrella is only just coping but I'm seriously soaked everywhere from the waist down, but oddly it's still hot so it doesn't feel so uncomfortable. About half an hour later (when I'm REALLY starting to think I've taken a wrong turning), the shops and houses start thinning out, and it starts getting way more rural than even near my place. and just as it breaks into serious thunderstorm I pass the last house and come into a massive opening of fields, kind of like in 'north by northwest', so the wind really picks up and I'm in the middle of what seems like a typhoon and I wonder if I'm gonna be on the news as the stupid foreigner who braved what everyone else know to be a killer storm and got blown away (i saw not one single other person walking that day, maybe it was all over the news or something the night before.)

So anyway in the distance I see a little row of shops so I practically run there, and they're all boarded up (must be for the storm, its midday Saturday) except the end one, so I slide open the door and shout 'excuse me!' inside. This really old man comes out from the back in shorts and tee shirt, and I ask him if this is Kaibara (thats where I want to go if you've forgotten.) He doesn't speak English, and I speak about 5 words of Japanese, so it was very interesting. After a while of trying to draw me a map whilst I wait outside, he gets me to come in, and whilst I'm shedding water all over the floor of his shop (which seems to be an odd mix of tobacconist and cake shop) he's drawing diagrams and talking. I'm not really sure what he's saying, but variously he was talking about terrible rain, something about I've come the wrong way for Kaibara, and then something about a doctor. This kind of confused me then he went out back and reappeared with wellies and an umbrella and led me through the rainstorm to a doctor's surgery opposite. (This was very surreal.) I was really confused at this point, but followed him in, and out came the nurse, and after talking with the old man in Japanese, she called the doctor out. So the three of them are having a conference, and I don't really know what I'm doing there.

So the doctor (who speaks English) seems to think I've asked the old man to bring me there to ask his advice, so I ask him which is nearer, Aogaki or Kaibara. I'm thinking I just want to be somewhere cos I'm tired of walking. He helpfully says we're equidistant from both. I'm aware that I'm sort of bothering all these people, the doctor offers to drive me home but I am really aware of making a massive fuss over just wanting some directions so I refuse. (Everyone seems surprised I tried to walk there, maybe it really is a long way.) So I leave to walk back the way I came and as I step out a bus goes past towards Aogaki, and the doctor tells me that was the second and final bus for Aogaki that day. Rubbish.

The rain stopped a few minutes after though, which was good. Feeling that I wasted the day, I stop at a vending machine and have some 'British Style Royal Milk Tea' in a can. It tastes like rice pudding, which is nice. On the way home I stop at Family Mart to pick up some food (apples are £2 for 3 here... ouch), and it turns out they have Muji stuff in there. MAN, muji is ripping us off in the UK. Here it's like the cheapy brand, seriously, the same notebook I buy for about £2.50 in the UK is 40p here. Somehow it managed to position itself as a luxury brand back home. Man I love convenience stores here. Oh so I still didn't take pictures of where I live, but these are some of between my place and the place I ended up which I didn't want to go to.



Oh yeah and Grape Fanta is played OUT... It's all about the creamsoda melon fanta.